Andrew Korner
Journalist
Andrew was born and bred in Ipswich and has been at the QT since 2007. After starting out on the country rounds, he moved onto court reporting and then police and emergency services, which he has now been covering for the last three years. When he is not working on police rounds Andrew is busy sifting through the garbage of famous people, in search of ideas for his weekly column, the Naughty Korner. As there are very few famous people in Ipswich, Andrew is often forced to write his column about...

HOME owners devastated by the 2011 floods are now counting the cost of a very different dose of extreme weather.

Among the worst hit Ipswich areas in Sunday's howling thunderstorms was the strip along Brisbane Tce, Goodna, where an alley of massive old trees was shredded apart like confetti.

Locals described it as the most violent and loud thunderstorm they'd ever seen, as trees were either up rooted or splintered, toppling onto houses, fences and roads.

Power was cut for about 12 hours, with many of the large trees taking power lines down with them.

Part of the roof was ripped off the Goodna Bowls Club at the height of the explosive weather system, which crossed Ipswich just after 5pm and smashed several of the city's eastern suburbs.

The Goodna Eagles Rugby League Club, still picking itself up from the deluge of four years ago, had a 20m high pine tree topple down in its front car park, smashing the front awning, while several smaller trees smashed the white fence that surrounds the playing field.

DESTRUCTIVE FORCE: This house on Brisbane Terrace in Goodna was one of several to sustain damage from falling trees on Sunday afternoon.

Across Goodna and the nearby suburbs of Collingwood Park and Dinmore, as well as Booval and Karalee, there were about 150 calls for service to the SES in the wake of the storm.

Brisbane Tce copped the full force of the strong winds that came with the storm.

Roy Kippen's house narrowly escaped damage as a large tree directly in from of his home toppled down.

"That was one of the wildest storms I've seen for a long time," Mr Kippen said.

"It was very gusty, very noisy and very damaging.

"The noise was deafening, with the wind blowing and the trees coming down."

Mr Kippen said he had previously raised concerns about the line of trees on Brisbane Tce and what would happen in the event of a big storm.

The Goodna Leagues Club was lucky to escape significant damage when this tree fell during Sunday’s storm.

"I was worried because if that tree blows around the other way - and I've told them before it's dangerous - it's going to come down on my fence and my house.

"Now you can see what's happened."

A resident a few doors up from Mr Kippen said the trees were checked about six months ago - and declared safe - after a tree fell down out of the blue one day.

Brisbane Tce remained blocked yesterday, as tree loppers and Energex crews continued the clean-up.

Goodna Eagles club co-ordinator Ann Fouracre said she was waiting for word from the insurance company before getting started on the second disaster clean-up in four years.

"Rotary was having a function at the time the storm came through and there were still four people here," Ms Fouracre said.

A resident helps the clean-up on Brisbane Terrace in Goodna on Monday morning.

"They had to take shelter inside until it subsided, which would have been scary because there were trees coming down out the front and all around the field and the park next door.

"This has come at a bad time for us because we've been holding markets every second weekend to try to get the club going again.

"We've also got a Christmas event this Saturday."

Ipswich SES controller Matthew Pinder said residents needed help with everything from trees down on houses and driveways, to leaking rooves.

Volunteer orange army personnel remained out on the job until midnight Sunday, getting a few hours sleep before getting back on the job about 7am yesterday.

Clean-up after the storm :
Ipswich council workers clean-up after last night's destructive storm which swept across South East Queensland.